The premise is markedly French, which should be an early indication whether you need to read further. Fabrice Luchini stars as Germain, a failed writer who now works as a high school literature teacher. He’s an intellectual and a snob, the sort of man who shares the atrocious writing of his students with his wife Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas). It’s the start of the school year, and Germain is more pessimistic about his class than usual. Then he reads a short story by Claude (Ernst Umhauer), and it’s surprisingly good. It’s about how Claude ingratiates himself with Rapha (Bastien Ughetto) and his family. He pays special attention to Rapha’s mother Esther (Emmanuelle Seigner): when he uses the phrase “the singular scent of a middle class woman,” it’s a red flag for Germain and Jeanne.

Maybe because he’s bored or maybe because he’s curious, Germain meets with Claude and helps him with his writing. The short story becomes a novella, and Ozon depicts Claude’s words through flashback and voiceover. It’s never entirely clear whether what we see is what literally happens: in a terrific scene, Claude mocks Rapha’s father (Inglourious Basterd’s Denis Ménochet), only to rewrite it so he’s more sympathetic. Ozon never comments on the morality of the game between Claude and Germain. Instead, he shows two smart, impulsive people who know it’s more delicious to let things play out than stop. When Germain resorts to unethical behavior to massage the relationship between Claude and Rapha, a lesser film would make his transgression the lynchpin of the plot. Ozon would rather have a perfunctory argument between Germain and Jeanne about it, and then move forward. Right and wrong are immaterial when Claude’s story grows more complex.

There is an intriguing sub-plot about Jeanne’s professional life, and it runs parallel to Germain’s. She runs an art gallery, and she struggles to find stuff that will sell. At first she goes with pure shock: we see swastikas made out of genitalia and dictators repurposed as sex dolls. Eventually she settles on bland cloudscapes, which is antithetical to Claude’s development as a writer. Ozon makes a sneaky point about art and where it comes from: an ordinary middle class kid can produce something more thought-provoking than an artist with a top-notch pedigree. Jeanne understands this all too well, which partially explains her interest in Claude. It’s kind of inevitable that she meets hims, and this inevitably weighs on their conversation. They speak with resignation, going through the motions of what they know must happen, and the actors are good enough so their meeting is funny, not boring.

It’s hard to imagine any other actor fitting into the major roles. Handsome and manipulative, Umhauer’s Claude is not exactly a sociopath. He’s more like a rebel who’d prefers the pen over a can of spray paint. Rapha and his family look resolutely boring – there’s simply nothing extraordinary about them until Claude enters their lives – and the actors have the courage to serve Ozon’s vision. Thomas and Luchini are the important performances, and Ozon investigates their relationship more than any others. It’s hard to imagine such a marriage in the United States: they’re loveless, basically, so the only things they share are loose morals and intellectual curiosity. Thomas is in more French movies than English-speaking ones, and she’s settled into the role of a prickly, distant middle-aged woman with ease. Luchini has a unique presence – he’s doughy-looking yet his mind is always sharp – and here he’s allowed to show his more confident side (in movies like The Girl from Monaco, he’s typically more reserved).  Ozon gives Luchini the unlikely combination of pride and humility: when Claude taunts Germain in one of his stories, Jeanne protests until Germain remarks, “Well, he’s right.”

The similarities between In the House and The Great Gatsby are startling. Both feature an older character who implores a young man to write about his ideal person. Things go well for a while, until the intervention of the young men completely destroys the thing they were writing. In the House even ends on a shot of a green light (granted, the lights are in more than one color). Ozon invests in his characters so that every plot point, no matter how surprising, is in step with what these particular people would do. The act of writing is essential to both films, but unlike Luhrmann, you get the sense reading is important to Ozon, too.

The biggest split from Fitzgerald is how Luhrmann and co-screenwriter Craig Pearce frame the narrative. Nick Carraway (Tobey Magiure) still narrates the story, but in this version he does it from an insane asylum. A psychiatrist sees that Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) stirs something within Nick, so he implores his patient to write it all down. The decision is not a bad one: it gives Nick a clearer context, and the book already plays with a narrator who doesn’t quite trust himself. Luhrmann also lifts key phrases from the book and put them on the screen when they’re spoken. It’s his version of honoring Fitzgerald, I guess, but the effect just points to Luhrmann’s superficial engagement with the material. He knows these words matter to a lot of people. He just doesn’t understand why.

The first section of the film is where Luhrmann clearly has the most fun (things like conflict and character are secondary). Luhrmann’s version of Long Island and New York looks both modern and vintage. Some choices are so audacious that they’re unintentionally funny: when Nick parties with Myrtle Wilson (Isla Fisher), the soundtrack shifts abruptly from jazz to dub-step (the scene plays out a lot like this Key and Peele sketch). Character introductions are similarly ham-fisted. Daisy (Carey Mulligan) looks angelic as white curtains flutter through the room she’s in, and when we first see Gatsby, Luhrmann pairs Leo’s handsome face with fireworks. The moment is meant to be galvanizing, offering a sense of excitement and relief, but Luhrmann’s on-the-nose sensibilities muck up the introduction. DiCaprio’s smile has never been more corny and awkward.

Luhrmann is not responsible for all the problems in The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald’s text includes scenes that don’t adapt to film well: there’s a long verbal fight between Gatsby and Daisy’s husband Tom (Joel Edgerton), but there’s no tension without Nick’s commentary, so the dialogue sags when it should pop. In terms of linear plot, the book is all over the place –asides and flashbacks are constant – which is fine for subjective narrator. Film is the more objective medium, and when Luhrmann dials back his style to finish the story, he does not have the chops to handle argument scenes. More importantly, Luhrmann’s unabashed affection for lavish production design demonstrates fundamental misinterpretation with the material. Fitzgerald criticizes the milieu of his world while Luhrmann celebrates it, and this misfire undermines the movie at every turn.

All the actors are good sports (or should I say “old sports”?), yet none of them can stop Luhrmann’s descent into tedium. Maguire’s squeaky voice and boyish looks are a good entry point, and his hardening into an unhappy man is a convincing transition. DiCaprio plays Gatsby like he’s halfway between a con man and a kid, which is a good choice for the role. The lead-up to the reunion between Gatsby and Daisy, his long-lost lover, works because DiCaprio makes it seem as if Gatsby has never kissed a girl before. Mulligan does not have the same nuance because Fitzgerald does not supply it for her: she does not capture Nick’s attention like Gatsby does, so she has no choice but to look superficially waifish. Unsurprisingly, the best performances come from Edgerton and Jason Clarke, who plays Myrtle’s husband George. Their motivations are always clear, so the actors have no problem adding emotion where it’s necessary. Fitzgerald intentionally kept the agenda of his principle characters obscure – where went to always wonder what’s the deal with Gatsby – but the movie lacks the interest to even dig into high school term paper territory.

Baz Luhrmann would have been a great silent film director. Back then the emphasis was on sets, gestures, and faces. Luhrmann could have thrived if he was working at a period where peers built ornate rooms, but did not yet have the grammar for complex narrative. I bet the characters of The Great Gatsby might have even enjoyed a Luhrmann film from the silent era.  Alas, here he’s an absurd stylist who squeezes source material into his little comfort zone, when a better director would have the humility to do it the other way around. The Great Gatsby does a disservice to high school students and readers everywhere because Luhrmann might as well have adapted the CliffsNotes version. At least English teachers will be able to tell when their students skipped the book for the movie.

At 75 minutes, the documentary already feels too long. Director Jeff Smith filmed interviews with members of the cast, the production team, and several fans of the show (no appearances by Jessica Walter and Michael Cera, bless their hearts). They walk us through the show, reminiscence about how funny it was, and relive their anger over the show’s early cancellation. That’s it. There are no clips from the show, and Smith can’t even afford to show stills from an episode. Instead, he gives us a lazy circlejerk where everyone from creator Mitchell Hurwitz to narrator Ron Howard to The TV Geek from Comedy Central’sBeat the Geeks opines about the show’s brilliance. Anyone who watches this documentary does not need to be convinced.

It is borderline insulting to watch how Smith pads out his documentary so it is feature-length. There’s a clunky introduction to every major character, for example, which is ironic since the show is known for its fast-paced dialogue. The only remotely interesting section is when everyone talks about the show’s early death, but there is unanimous agreement Arrested Development simply did not have the ratings to sustain itself. There’s no denying the show was ahead of its time — sitcoms without laugh tracks are more culturally relevant than ever — yet any fan of the show is keenly aware of what the talking heads espouse.

I’m sure there is a target audience for this documentary — you know, the friend of yours who equates humor with endlessly quoting lines from the show. (I have a friend like that, and I hope he’s offended when he reads this review.) The Arrested Development Documentary is bereft of insight, and since it was largely funded by Kickstarter, I hope the backers demand their money back. We don’t need to hear Jason Bateman, David Cross, and others talk about the good years when they’re (probably) hungover. By the 15-minute mark of this tedium, I was ready to turn it off and revisit my favorite episodes. They’re all streaming on Netflix, after all, and more are about to come.

The nautical-themed prologue is playful and unfolds without dialogue. A blue curtain hides the handsome stage, which is dominated by a large, broken stained glass window. Twins Viola (Emily Trask) and Sebastian (William Vaughan) show genuine tenderness as they dance their way through the shipwreck that sets the plot into motion. Not knowing the other is alive, they end up on the island of Illyria. Romantic shenanigans ensue: while dressed as a man and going by the name Cesario, Viola falls in love with Orsino (Michael Brusasco). Cesario presents a message on behalf of the Duke to Olivia (Rachel Pickup), and of course Olivia falls in love with him/her. Cesario is enough to knock Olivia out of mourning, which is unfortunate for Malvolio (Richard Sheridan Willis) since his pompous severity is what made him an ideal servant for Olivia.

Twelfth Night has more musical interludes than the typical Shakespeare play, and while most productions jettison them, Richmond puts them front and center. The costumes and set design are inspired by the early twentieth century, so music has this infectious, jazzy folksiness. Most of the songs are sung by Feste (Louis Butelli), the island’s requisite fool, and the strumming on his ukulele is welcome change from a character typically defined by verbal dexterity. Butelli is not the only character who performs an instrument on stage: in one scene, Trask plays the cello with further from accompaniment from Butelli, Antonio (Chris Genebach) on clarinet, and Valentine (Joshua Morgan) on piano. It’s the Shakespearean equivalent of a Beirut concert, except the actors must do so much more than play a little ditty.

Olivia has always been a problematic character – she falls in love with feminine “boy” and is later his satisfied by his twin – but Pickup pushes through thorny dialogue with on-stage vulnerability. She’s articulate and beautiful, so it is easy sympathize with her core while the method to her happiness does not hold up to scrutiny (Vaughan gets a big laugh with a physical gag when he can’t believe his luck with women). The Malvolio sub-plot is more successful because Willis turns him into an unforgivable ass. In the play’s infamous comic moment, he’s tricked by Toby (Craig Wallace), Andrew (James Konicek), and Olivia’s maid Maria (Tonya Beckman). Willis’ transformation from a fastidious jerk to a pathetic wretch is impressive: Willis has the audience in the palm of his hand when he attempts to smile, and only can create a goofy sneer.

Most characters in this play experience various stages of romantic free-fall, and the cast has no problem with the frequent plot twists. When she’s not playing the cello, Trask modulates her voice just enough so that she can sort of pass for a man, and her lines to Olivia about the nature of love are appropriately passionate. Wallace and Konicek have fun playing a drunk and a dandy, respectively, but Beckman is the funniest (as with many Shakespeare comedies, the characters that stand outside the fray are the ones who provide a hilarious running commentary). And although his role isn’t comic, Genebach adds emotional heft when a twin mix-up leads to a scene defined by his betrayal.

Richmond makes a few delightfully bold choices with his production, and they have nothing to do with Shakespeare. You may want to stick around during the intermission: the cast hangs out on stage, and they perform some silent vaudeville comedy. This material blurs the line between stage and audience, so when the second half begins with a Butelli belting out a classic song, the audience is quick to jump in for a sing-along. This is not what we normally expect from Shakespeare, which is precisely the point. Richmond and his cast do not use delicate white gloves when they’re handling the classic playwright; they know he wouldn’t take this material so seriously, either.

Pål Sverre Valheim Hagen stars as Heyerdahl, a defiant explorer who firmly believes Polynesia was settled by South Americans. All the experts, including National Geographic, practically laugh in his face. He decides to show the journey was possible by completing himself, using only what ancient Peruvians had available. He uses a raft, not a boat, and trusts that a current will eventually guide the vesselto safety. The other crew members include Herman Watzinger (Anders Baasmo Christiansen), a refrigerator salesman who longs for purpose, and Bengt Danielsson (Gustaf Skarsgård), a bearded Swede who films the entire thing (the documentary would eventually win an Academy Award). The first weeks of the trip are disastrous: they stay too close to the coast and run the risk losing course altogether. Morale is already low, and then sharks terrorize the crew.

Rønning and Sandberg wisely rush the early scenes, so we can spend most of our time adrift at sea. The cinematography is stunning. The ocean feels vast, beautiful, and uninviting. The inevitable storm scene – every movie about ships has one – clarifies how meager these men are, and how they’re at the complete mercy of the Pacific. This is all familiar material, but what sets Kon-Tiki apart is the crew’s competence. Unlike Life of Pi, where a young man is shipwrecked, these Scandinavians know exactly what they’re doing (more or less), and the directors use this self-determination to their advantage. There’s always some interesting detail when they must solve a problem, so when they do freak out, the suspense feels heightened. The shark scenes are terrific precisely because the creatures lack an agenda: their mere presence is threatening because they’re so large, and in one crucial scene, a smaller shark thrashes itself on board the raft (a crew member attacks it with feverish anger). Aside from the occasional flourish, the actors internalize the simplicity of the story, and avoid nuance in effective performances. The stunning success of the journey does most of the work for them.

There’s a strange wrinkle about the production of Kon-Tiki. In an effort to please the producers, the directors made two versions of the film: one in Norwegian and one in English. The English version is the one opening this weekend, and while I haven’t seen the Norwegian version, other critics are quick to point out how they differ. The Norwegian version includes more of the sub-plot with Heyerdahl and his wife, whereas the English version ignores her once he leaves the South American coast. It appears the English version is meant to be less challenging and complex, which is just as well since Kon-Tiki is more about the adventure than its aftermath.

Cinema is a specificity of vision…  It means that if this filmmaker didn’t do it, it either wouldn’t exist at all, or it wouldn’t exist in anything like this form.

By Soderbergh’s metric, Iron Man 3 is cinema. Writer/director Shane Black is all over this thing, whether it’s the pithy one-liners or the fact that it’s eerily similar to an action movie from the 1980s. Soderbergh is quick to point that cinema does not necessarily mean that the film in question is any good, which also sort of applies to Iron Man 3, too. It does exactly what fans expect, but its loud, dumb third act casts a pall over the preceding two.

It’s been a year since Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) saved New York from aliens in a parallel universe, and dude’s got problems. He cannot sleep, he suffers from panic attacks, and he’s a bad boyfriend to Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). His solution, naturally, is to improve upon Iron Man; he has a legion of suits, and they are capable of operating without Stark inside. The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) complicates Stark’s problems: he’s a cruel terrorist, and his random bombings bewilder the President (William Sadler) and Stark’s friend James Rhodes (Don Cheadle). After a Mandarin attack leaves Happy (Jon Favreau) in a coma, Stark vows revenge and (crucially) announces his address to the world. Mandarin’s thugs arrive via helicopter, destroying the mansion with ease.

Iron Man 3 is Shane Black’s first movie since 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and he still fetishizes the same things. Before we even see the Marvel logo, for example, there is a voiceover where Stark apologizes for introducing the wrong scene too early. This is not a bad thing: Shane Black is a confident auteur, and he knows how to construct a solid, entertaining script. And for a while, Iron Man 3succeeds by depriving Stark of his suit. In the lengthy middle section, his latest model lacks power so Stark makes due with a Home Depot visit and the assistance of a little kid. The kid is a good, albeit cynical, foil for Stark. He’s able to ask the questions all the fan boys want to know, and he’s not so cute that you want to punch him the face. Downey Jr., who pretty much can play Stark in his sleep, gets the biggest laughs when he’s a prick to a child.

While Stark is stuck in suburbia, Pepper and the rest of the good guys must contend with the Mandarin and Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) the mad scientist. And since we’re talking about Marvel here, there are some important deadly mutants: indestructible super-humans who radiate heat and other crazy shit. They’re like T-1000 with a bad attitude, but unlike James Cameron, Black cannot decide rules for how they function. The climax is a long, dizzying battle between automated Iron Mans and these mutants, yet the editing amounts to little more than explosive histrionics so there is none of the Stark badassery that we’ve come to expect. It’s suspenseful when a man in a suit fights for good, but when his machines do it for him, the effect is hollow, both literally and metaphorically.

The unlikely technology is the least interesting thing about Iron Man 3, so it succeeds mostly as a comedy. Kingsley is menacing and funny as the Madarin, and in an important scene he manages to outdo Downey Jr. in terms of fun. When he’s not unconscious, Favreau has some fun as a fastidious man who’d rather be correct than well-liked. But as with the previous two movies, this is the RDJ show, and what’s notable here is how he sells Stark’s vulnerability. It’s a physical performance – he runs around a lot, and even breaks into a mansion – and he hides his affection well.  Given Black’s gravitation toward badass men like Stark, the biggest surprise is from Paltrow, who’s finally allowed to play with the boys.

Unlike Iron Man 2, which suffered from a villain who did not make much sense, the agenda behind the bad guys in Iron Man 3 is much clearer. Once again we have a rival genius who wants to undermine Stark’s empire, and his motivation oddly mirrors the villain in The Incredibles (arguably the best superhero movie ever made). Black could learn a thing or two from Brad Bird, The Incredibles’ director, who knows how to make smart, funny movies that also preserves a near-constant state of tension. Like Bird’s villain, Black’s bad guy likes to talk more than he should, but at least Syndrome has the wherewithal to realize he’s “monologue-ing.” We should expect more from a director who goes meta at the first chance he gets.

Skin Tight begins boldly. With a jarring punk rock soundtrack, Elizabeth (Emily Townley) and Tom (Jens Rasmussen) run headlong for each other and begin fighting. They both toss around on stage, but once the music cuts out, they start to reflect on their marriage. Stuck between youth and middle age, they’re wistful while still nursing deep wounds. In a long monologue, Elizabeth talks about World War 2, and its effect on the women who stayed behind: she resents Tom’s service because it changed him, though she recognizes how it was necessary. The pair grasps for closure, and finds it only after they acknowledge how easily love can become hate.

While 2-2 Tango is another play about relationship, its setting could not be more different from Skin Tight. Instead of mid-century New Zealand, we have a modern party where Jim (Jon Hudson Odom) and James (Alex Mills) spot each other. They try to ignore their attraction – the dialogue offers a running narration of their thought process – but they’re too turned on. At first, their concerns are relatively trivial: in hilariously parallel dialogue, both men explain how they don’t to be the one to host a one night stand. But as Jim and James get to know each other, the problems get thornier, and they have a shared fantasy of how everything will go wrong.

Whereas Skin Tight relies on chemistry, 2-2 Tango is more like two concurrent one man shows. Townley and Rasmussen are a strong pair, although they’re a little weathered. Under the direction of Johanna Gruenhut, they combine intimacy with raw anger. A knife is an important part of the play: there’s a prolonged scene where Townley holds one in her mouth, and another where Rasmussen uses it to project sexiness. All this passion exists in a sort of vacuum: there’s an ethereal to timelessness to Henderson’s setting, and while it’s fruitful way to explore their relationship, he cannot quite stick the ending. Many modern plays run out of steam and resort to nudity, and that happens again here. There’s no need to see the actors without clothes – we already understand what Tom and Elizabeth mean to each other – so it only works as a theatrical stunt.

Jim and James may take off their clothes, but they go the whole way (MacIvor does not see the need for it). Instead, he chips away at dialogue to its rhetorical essentials. Mills and Odom spend a lot of time dancing, and 2-2 Tango forces them to create their own soundtrack. They repeat simple phrases until they become a rhythm, and the stylish dialogue has an infectious cadence. The nervy decisions behind a stripped-down affair is admirable; the actors and director Eric Ruffin find an athletic, funny alternative to the typical neuroses of a new relationship. 2-2 Tango does not have the emotional impact that Skin Tight does, but it leaves a longer-lasting impression by hitting its easier notes with perfect clarity.

While both playwrights focus on a relationship, their respective plays include a third performer. The third actors mirror each other: an old man appears in Skin Tight, while a little boy peppers the action in2-2 Tango. They’re meant as focal points. We watch as the old man reflects on his past, and as the young boy looks to what might be his future. They reminds us how the principle characters in these plays are more like vessels of nostalgia: through their back and forth, even the messiest romances still have a way of helping us forget the ugly parts.

Robbie (Paul Brannigan) is world-class fuck-up. A judge shows mercy when he’s being sentenced for a violent crime only because his girlfriend Leonie (Siobhan Reilly) is expecting a baby. Faced with community service instead of jail time, his supervisor is Harry (John Henshaw), a lonely man with a taste for scotch. Harry pities Robbie – they both go to the hospital when Leonie is in labor, and Harry gets a taste of Robbie’s brutal home life – but then things change once they go to a whiskey distillery one weekend (I don’t understand why it’s a good idea to take a group of ex-convicts to scotch tasting, but there are just some things we just have to concede). Robbie develops a nose for the stuff, and when a whiskey master plays coy about uniquely rare barrel, Robbie and his three convict friends come up with a plan to steal some of it.

Those three convict friends are the basis for the film’s many funny scenes. Mo (Jasmine Riggins) is a borderline kleptomaniac (she steals small whiskey bottles even when she doesn’t like the taste). Albert (William Ruane) is a goofy moron, a Scottish riff on Karl Pilkington, and Rhino (Gary Maitland) gets laughs whenever he reacts to Albert’s jaw-dropping idiocy. Without their blatant comic relief, The Angel’s Share would fall apart because Robbie’s story is downright grim. He has few hopes, cannot get a job, and even has a longstanding blood feud with another hooligan. Brannigan wisely downplays his character, even during his most dramatic scenes, so his redemption is more internal. That is not to say, however, that the material is ever sentimental. Loach and Laverty avoid cloying melodrama in the simplest way possible: with a stream of non-stop profanity. Robbie and the others say “fuck” and “cunt” as if it’s a necessary part of breathing, and creative their way with words is kind of elegant.

The whiskey heist is a smart way to resolve this kind of story. It distills all we’ve learned about Robbie, and more importantly, the specifics of the crime are weirdly plausible. Robbie overhears a snippet of crucial dialogue, and while it’s an obvious plot convenience, Loach and Laverty do not insult the audience’s intelligence. Instead, they create an economic divide between the criminals and the people from whom they’re stealing: Robbie succeeds because the distillers figure that a bunch of poor hooligans do not have the wherewithal to appreciate whiskey. There are no victims, really, so the aftermath of the crime unfolds with a pleasant “aw, shucks” vibe. The Angel’s Share won the audience award at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, and it’s easy to see why. Loach is not ambitious with his latest, but when a simple story is told this well, he doesn’t need to be.

Before Midnight

This might just be the initial wave of euphoria, but I suspect Before Midnight might be one the most romantic movies I’ve ever seen. Set nine years after Before Sunset, director Richard Linklater reunites Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) for a day in Greece. It would be criminal to reveal any more plot details: the movie answers several big questions about their relationship within its first five minutes. As Jesse and Celine talk and argue, it’s fascinating to see how age has changed them. They still have their unique perspective – Jesse constantly thinks about how perception changes our idea of time, and the state of worldwide feminism still worries Celine – but with added baggage. There is no way the 23 year-old version of themselves could conceive of their 41 year-old selves, and both of them are keenly aware of it.

Like the previous two films, Linklater achieves a peculiar sense of tension through dialogue alone. Death, love, commitment, and sex are their chief topics of conversations. These are well-worn subjects, this is true, but the script by Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy holds our attention by keeping constantly aware of how experience changes how we feel. Did I mention the movie is also hilarious? Even during their biggest arguments, Hawke and Delpy can toss a one-liner so that we experience the same whirlwind of emotions that their characters do. The chemistry between Hawke and Delpy is still there, only now it’s deepened. When the credits inevitably began, I didn’t want to leave these two characters, yet also I knew that any moment longer would take the piss out of the whole thing. Before Midnight is just perfect.

Taboor

Thirty-five minutes pass before anyone speaks in Taboor, the minimalist drama from Iranian filmmaker Vahid Vakilifar. Up until the point, the film follows an old who man moves with deliberate control. He begins his night in a room lined with tin foil, and he puts on a tin foil suit underneath his clothes before setting off into the night. There is no explanation for what he’s doing; in fact, we never hear him speak. We’re left with the imagery, which is monolithic and spare. There are some takes that last longer than three minutes, and others where there’s barely any light. Vakilifar keeps his intentions obscure, and so Taboor works as meditation on… well, I don’t know what. Challenging films like this are common at festivals, but nowhere else, as most audience prefers not to have their patience tested. It is rewarding to see a filmmaker who absolutely refuses to compromise his vision, although that kind of commitment rarely entertains.

Frankenstein’s Army

Frankenstein’s Army combines genres that have business with each other: a World War 2 thriller and a found footage horror film. Director Richard Raaphorst begins with a group of Russian soldiers who are in charge of reconnaissance. Crucially, one of the soldiers has a camera (a brief prologue explains he’s a student of cinematography, and he’s filming them for posterity). The group finds some disquieting things alone the countryside: there is a pile of burned nuns, and another corpse looks like a steam-punk nightmare. Before long, the soldiers realize that the grandson of Dr. Frankenstein (yes, that Dr. Frankenstein) is creating Nazi super-soldiers, one with simplistic yet brutal weapons attached to their bodies.

The creatures are wholly convincing. A memorable one has a swastika emblazoned on its forehead, and a giant drill bit for a mouth. Their killing methods are gleefully disgusting: one soldier has his head squeezed until his brain literally pops out of his head. It’s gross and fun, yet Frankenstein’s Armyfalters with its flat characters and disorienting visual style. The actors accents are inconsistent, and the camerawork is deliberately sloppy so that when the mayhem begins, we cannot fully comprehend their terror. Raaphorst has a perfect premise – demented Nazi monsters are irresistible to horror fans – yet his execution cannot match his imagination. By the time Dr. Frankenstein reveals his true intentions to his final victim, there’s no serious engagement with this kind of material, so this horror film amounts to little more than a highly specific, bloody playground.

Michael H. Profession: Director

Early in Michael H. Profession: Director, the Austrian director patiently explains how he respects his audience. This respect, he reasons, is why he’s able to challenge them (all his films are disturbing, and usually on multiple levels). This documentary looks at his films, going in reverse chronological order. Director Yves Montmayeur, who worked with Haneke throughout his career, gets uncommon access to the work behind the scenes. We see how he works with actors – he pantomimes what he wants them to do – and how demanding he can be. There are also interviews with Haneke, and he (wisely) avoids talking about what his films mean. Method and intent are far more interesting.

It’s 2067, and Earth is a wasteland. A war with the scavengers (nicknamed “scavs”) resulted in the moon’s destruction, and since our planet couldn’t handle that kind lunar upheaval, super-storms then destroyed entire cities. The only ones left on the planet are Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) and Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), who are cleaning up the leftover scavs while the rest of Earth hang out on Saturn’s moon Titan (“We lost the planet but won the war” is a repeated line).

Jack’s more nostalgic about Earth than Victoria: while she sits in an elegant sky station, taking orders from Sally (Melissa Leo), Jack visits the ruins of football stadiums and tries to relive civilization’s glory days. With only two weeks left before leaving Earth, Jack intercepts a distress call from a ship that’s been floating through space for sixty years. He recognizes Julia (Olga Kurylenko), the ship’s only survivor, because she’s literally the women from his dreams. And when she regains consciousness, she calls Jack by his name. Their connection upends everything Jack understands about his world.

I wouldn’t say Kosinski outright steals from other science fiction films. His world is too stylized and unique for that. Instead, his film borrows tropes from the best of the genre, whether they’re highbrow or corny, and adjusts them so they conform to his vision. There’s a nod to Planet of the Apes when Beech (Morgan Freeman), a resistance leader, tells Jack he won’t necessarily like the answers he’s looking for. Julia’s stasis and subsequent recovery is straight out of Aliens. Despite all these references, Kosinski keeps it fresh (mostly) with thought-provoking plot twists. Unexpectedly, the script coalesces into a satisfying love triangle. Jack means different things to Victoria and Julia, and his significance to them shifts as the plot continues. By the time Kosinski wraps it up, he settles on a definitive theory of what it means to be human.

The dimensions of a typical movie theater are not enough for Oblivion, and a retina-bursting IMAX screen does the visuals a service. Kosinski does not include too many details, and prefers to construct a shot around a singular, striking image. The eye focuses on just one detail, constructing a visual metaphor for Jack’s gnawing loneliness. While he’s out on patrol, the landscapes look as if they’re sandblasted, and only husks of the biggest monuments remain. Jack does find reprieve in a forgotten valley, one that can still sustain life, yet they’re no match for an abandoned planet. M83 provides the background music, and their woozy synths shrewdly counteract the production design.

Tom Cruise is the sort of movie star who mustn’t ever share the limelight. His recent films have all been about him, and the relatively unrecognizable supporting cast is forced to bask in his ego (Freeman only appears in a handful of scenes). Cruise justifies his participation through effective, muscular performances. Jack does not need to be smart — we’re figuring out the puzzle along with him — but he does need to likable, and Kosinski accomplishes that by focusing on his character’s taciturn competence. Whether it’s a chase through cliffs or a gun battle with killer robots, Cruise sells the inherent silliness of the material. The two women do what they can with relatively simpler roles, yet they’re little more than targets for Jack’s emotion. Leo gives a more nuanced, deliberately sinister performance, even though her character is nothing more than a face on a screen.

Oblivion does not have the structure of a typical science fiction film. Jack’s discovery is continuous, so even late into the story there are still suspenseful moments where we ache to understand what exactly is happening. Sure, there are speedy action sequences where Kosinski can show off his kinetic inventiveness, but ultimately matters is how Jack comes to understand his place in the world. Earth may be a wasteland, but that’s nearly immaterial once there’s a mutual, deep connection with someone else. In a clever way, Kosinski finds a way to have this connection transcend death.